


the ties that bind

by taywen



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Art as a Theme, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, I am not an artist, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Low Chaos Emily Kaldwin, Post-Dishonored 2 (Video Game), no actual art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22193707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taywen/pseuds/taywen
Summary: The witch’s eyes bored into her. They were Kaldwin blue, like Jessamine’s; Emily had inherited Corvo’s eyes. She picked up the waiting paintbrush, its end wet with some dark colour. It bloomed bright crimson against white when Emily swiped it over the canvas.“Fascinating,” Delilah said, a sardonic echo of the creature that had given them the means to change their fates. “I know you tried not to kill on your little quest to retake the throne, but no one’s perfect, not even an Empress. How much blood is on your hands?”“Less than what’s onyours.”She woke with Delilah’s laughter ringing in her ears.Sealing Delilah in her masterwork doesn’t go as planned; instead, Delilah’s spirit is trapped in the Void once more. Fortunately(?), her only ambition seems to be haunting her niece’s dreams.
Relationships: Delilah Copperspoon & Emily Kaldwin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	the ties that bind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reconditarmonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/gifts).



“You don’t draw any longer,” Delilah said, the third or fourth time Emily dreamt of her in the Void after she reclaimed her throne.

“Anton said I didn’t have the talent for art.” She’d been upset at the time—Corvo had obviously retaliated somehow, because Anton had been uncharacteristically circumspect with her in the weeks following—but it didn’t matter to her any more.

Delilah’s mouth twisted into a contemptuous sneer. “What would that hack know about art.”

“He taught you, didn’t he?”

Delilah scoffed. “He gave me the opportunity to reach audiences who could properly appreciate my art, nothing more.”

“I’m sure.”

Emily looked around the cluttered studio with careful disinterest. Two canvases sat at angles to an empty stool; more leaned against one wall. Art supplies took up most of the raised flat surfaces: jars and pots of paint, brushes of all sizes, pencils and charcoal—everything a master painter would need to carry out their work. A palette full of Delilah’s trademark bright colours waited next to one of the easels.

“I cannot paint.” Frustration edged Delilah’s voice. “I can put paint on the brush, but it doesn’t transfer to the canvas. The same thing happens when I try to sketch or draw anything. The Outsider’s doing, no doubt.” She spat the entity’s name like a curse.

Emily eyed her sidelong, trying to gauge her sincerity: that was exactly the sort of thing a witch capable of bending reality to her will through art would say to lower her enemy’s guard.

“Why are you telling me this?” Emily said finally. Delilah was inscrutable. Her frustration, or anger, or cruelty were easy enough to read, but discerning the motive behind them was more difficult.

“Perhaps I’ve grown tired of the last of my kin looking at me with such suspicion.”

Emily blinked awake then, her instinctive scoff caught in her throat. Delilah wanted to pretend they were family? Ridiculous.

* * *

The duties of an Empress often felt like an endless procession of meetings: sessions of Parliament; meetings with her own advisors; listening to concerned citizens; introductions to the new Abbey officials flocking to Dunwall after the slaughter of Khulan and his men.

Long-winded would-be High Overseers in particular bored her. Jessamine had always been a dutiful adherent to the Abbey’s edicts; she had always sought to be an example for her people, a steady figure the commonfolk could look up to and a model for the nobles to follow. Jessamine had never had the Outsider’s attention except peripherally, as a catalyst for those that the Outsider actually cared to observe; Emily’s mark always burned when she had Overseers before her, though she knew it was her own mind playing tricks on her. She might hold the majority of them in contempt, but she wasn’t foolish enough to flaunt the Outsider’s mark before them; so long as she didn’t draw on the magic, the mark would remain safely quiescent beneath her glove.

The latest candidate for the Abbey’s highest office was especially rambling; before, Emily would have imagined she was running across rooftops or training with Corvo when she grew tired of listening to some pompous official ramble, confident that Corvo would verify their information for her in his capacity as Spymaster. Now, she doodled in the margins of her notes when their speeches got particularly tedious: a compromise that allowed her to listen while diverting some of her attention away so she didn’t expire from boredom.

Emily couldn’t imagine Jessamine giving less than her full attention to her subjects, and for the most part Emily followed her example. She always made sure to listen carefully to common petitioners who approached the throne; nobles or high officials who tried to muscle in on those times or take more of it than they were due, she had less patience for.

“Thank you for your time, Overseer Turner,” Emily said, cutting him off when he circled back to the same barely-veiled insults against Khulan for the third time. She regretted Khulan’s passing more with every would-be successor that came to solicit her support. Vice Overseer Byrne had been a thorn in her side back in Karnaca, but at least he’d been sincere in his beliefs; Turner took after Campbell, seeming to simply mouth the Strictures for the sake of appearances rather than follow them in truth.

“Your Majesty.” Turner bowed stiffly—and not deeply enough. Emily narrowed her eyes, but let it pass without comment. In general, she didn’t care if others didn’t adhere to protocol—she wasn’t the most fond of it herself—but neither did she appreciate the disrespect inherent in Turner’s lackadaisical obeisance. “Surely you agree that a firmer hand is needed for the common folk. Witchcraft and superstition only flourished under Khulan’s lax approach, and especially following your aunt’s—”

“She wasn’t my aunt,” Emily said sharply. Though his face was hidden by the standard Overseer mask, she heard the click of his teeth as he swiftly closed his mouth. Finally. “The usurper met with some success because she had the advantage of key connections within high society. Perhaps the Abbey should turn its attention to the upper classes before it cracks down on the _common folk_ trying to survive a time of upheaval within Dunwall Tower. And Holger Square.”

Turner’s throat worked, but in the end he said nothing and only bowed again, properly this time. One of the guards stationed at the door opened it, and he finally departed.

Emily glanced at her notes. Turner hadn’t said anything worth remembering, and her clumsy doodles of whales and floating lamp posts might technically be considered heresy. She tossed them in the fire, then asked the guards to let in her next appointment.

* * *

“What was he like? Euhorn Kaldwin,” Emily clarified, when the witch only looked askance at her from across the room.

Delilah’s lips curled back from her teeth. “Your grandfather was no different from any other noble _prick_ born thinking the world belonged to him.”

“He was your father too,” Emily said, and could not help but add, “Allegedly.” Jessamine had seldom spoken of her father, and Corvo always claimed he hadn’t known Euhorn well enough to comment. Which was a comment on the former Emperor in and of itself, really.

Delilah’s eyes flashed. “Only when whim took him, when his _darling_ princess didn’t demand his time and his grasping wife was suitably distracted.”

It had been foolish to ask; Emily turned away. They were in a dilapidated old manor, water-stained and ruined—but traces of its former grandeur remained in the expensive patterns of the peeling and moldy wallpaper, and trinkets fallen through the cracks that had been missed by looters and scavengers. Impossible to tell where the manor was, or had been; only the Void was visible beyond crumbling walls and broken windows.

“I suppose Corvo never gave you reason to doubt the depth of his feelings for you.”

Emily almost snapped at her not to speak his name, before the strange tone of Delilah’s voice registered. “No,” she said instead.

When Delilah did not reply, Emily knelt to pick up a tarnished ring that managed to glint despite the dim light. An old crest greeted her: she frowned at it, trying to remember which house it heralded. Callista’s lessons were thorough, but she hadn’t the background to teach Emily about noble history; the last time Emily had seen this crest was before her mother’s death—

“Brigmore,” Delilah said. Emily hadn’t heard her approach; her hand closed in a fist around the ring without her consent.

“You’re still trying to paint?” The words came out easily, despite the way her heart pounded in her chest at the very thought. Sealing Delilah in her painting obviously hadn’t been the perfect solution that Emily had hoped, though the Outsider had assured her Delilah’s powers were gone. Apparently her spirit languished in the Void like any other. Well, not entirely like any other: Delilah’s spirit would not pass on, despite the Outsider’s persistent encouragement.

Delilah blinked, then smiled coldly. “Billie regaled you with tales of our sordid past.”

Billie—Meagan—The mention of her made Emily grit her teeth. She was an old hand at suffering betrayals by this point, but finding out that Meagan had once served Daud, and then Delilah, had stung. But she knew well the value of second chances, so Meagan—Billie—yet lived.

Delilah paced back across the warped floorboards. Their surroundings shifted as Delilah walked, though Emily remained still; the Void resolved into a ruined library, with a large, blank canvas set up at its centre. Paint, fluorescent as whale oil, puddled at the easel’s feet, as if it had simply dripped off the canvas.

“Daud ruined both our lives,” Delilah mused, staring up at the empty expanse of white.

That was certainly true, but Daud had also stopped Delilah from taking possession of Emily’s body. Corvo had explained that the Outsider’s mark had granted him the ability to temporarily possess the bodies of others when Emily asked him about it, but his power sounded far less permanent than what Meagan had described of Delilah's plan. Would Emily have been aware of what happened, or would her spirit have faded away?

Perhaps she would have haunted Delilah’s dreams, like the witch did now.

“Our own choices affect us too,” Emily said. She had relied too much on her father’s work as Royal Protector and Spymaster to secure her position; Dunwall’s court had fallen in line with Delilah so swiftly for many reasons, but Emily knew her obvious disinterest for—and chafing at the restrictions of—ruling had played a part in it, no matter how small.

“I wonder if Euhorn or Jessamine ever realized that.”

“My mother knew,” Emily snapped, all too aware of Delilah’s cold gaze. The witch’s eyes bored into her. They were Kaldwin blue, like Jessamine’s; Emily had inherited Corvo’s eyes. She stuffed the Brigmore ring into her pocket and picked up the waiting paintbrush, its end wet with some dark colour. It bloomed bright crimson against white when Emily swiped it over the canvas.

“Fascinating,” Delilah said, a sardonic echo of the creature that had given them the means to change their fates. “I know you tried not to kill on your little quest to retake the throne, but no one’s perfect, not even an Empress. How much blood is on your hands?”

She longed for the folding blade that was now hers, or even just something sharp-edged; the brush was a poor substitute. It snapped in her hands at the very thought. Emily had only her words to use against the witch.

“Less than what’s on _yours_.”

She woke with Delilah’s laughter ringing in her ears. Her hand was curled around the ring.

* * *

“Did you have an aunt or uncle, Father?” Emily asked, halfway through the main course. She tried to eat dinner with him every day, though between court functions, imperial crises, and their separate duties, they were lucky to share two meals a week.

“My mother had a sister who moved to Cullero before I was born. They exchanged letters when I was young, but I don’t think I ever met her,” Corvo said. His brow creased as he wracked his memory. “She died when I was—eight? Beatrici had fond memories of her though.”

She had another aunt, or had had, at any rate. Corvo had never found out what happened to his sister after she left Serkonos, and though Emily had entertained the notion of tracking her down when she first became Empress, nothing had ever come of it.

Emily ate a few more mouthfuls of the meal. It was Serkonan fare, though the spices were far more bland than Emily had tasted on the southernmost Isle; the Tower’s kitchen still struggled to cook non-Gristolian meals with any sort of authenticity. Wyman complained jokingly about their inability to make proper Morleyan meals whenever they came to visit.

“Did Mother ever mention Delilah to you?”

Corvo paused. “Is something bothering you, Emily?”

“Nothing,” she said, too quickly. When Corvo looked rightfully doubtful, she amended, “Nothing I can’t handle myself.”

Corvo’s expression remained unconvinced, but he didn’t press. He would have, before he had lost the Outsider’s mark that he’d never confided in her about, and been turned to stone.

“Delilah and her mother had been dismissed from the Tower by the time I came to Dunwall,” he said. “Assuming Delilah’s story was true. Jessamine did mention a childhood playmate whose mother was a servant, but I don’t recall ever hearing Delilah’s name.”

“I think Delilah was telling the truth—about that. As she experienced it.” Emily couldn’t imagine Jessamine acting out of malice. But her awareness of the consequences of her actions, her efforts to impress them upon her daughter, had to have come from somewhere. And the Heart had whispered regret that it—that she—had not tried to find Delilah.

Was it the same as an endless stream of issues and crises cropping up during Emily’s early rule to distract her from tracking Beatrici down? Would anything have swayed Delilah from her path?

When Emily was ten years old, dry-eyed and newly-crowned, she had wished that Corvo had killed them all: Burrows and his conspirators, who’d arranged her mother’s death. Daud, the assassin who’d wielded the blade. The traitorous Loyalists who’d tried to kill her father and use her as a puppet. She’d ordered the executions of Burrows and Havelock: they were the only ones still within her reach. She could only imagine Delilah’s reaction would have been similar; the effort it had taken Emily to stay her own hand against Delilah’s allies—

Delilah knew very well how much blood stained Emily’s hands.

“Fate deals us what hands it wills,” Corvo said. “What we make of that is our own choice.”

Servants came with dessert then, and the conversation turned to less fraught topics.

* * *

“Why do I always dream of places you’ve been,” Emily muttered, disgruntled. They were in the throne room as it had been under Delilah’s reign, though _The World As It Should Be_ was a crater blasted into the wall that led to the Void beyond. Emily sat upon a throne that was thankfully thankfully lacking in osseous adornments; Delilah leaned against the crumbling wall, arms crossed.

“Imagine something different, then.” Delilah’s voice practically dripped with disdain. “Working your will upon the Void isn’t difficult, especially with the mark.”

Did that mean Delilah could use the Void without the mark—? Emily closed her eyes, pushing those thoughts away; she was already exhausted from a long day of political intrigue, and she never felt as rested after a night of the Void and Delilah. She lacked the energy to scrutinize Delilah’s words and actions for hidden meanings.

The throne room was as it should be when Emily opened her eyes. Including, she remembered when Delilah gasped, the portrait Emily had hung above the throne.

“Why did you—” Delilah cut herself off, her face hard and closed as she gazed up at her final piece.

Corvo had wanted to burn it, but Emily had been strangely reluctant to do so. She’d told herself she wanted to hang it above her throne as a reminder of the foe she’d vanquished, for both herself and her people, but that was only part of the truth. Delilah’s masterwork was exactly that: the pinnacle of her art, a brilliant and chilling testament of her own will and ambition.

What had Emily ever created with her own two hands? She had known for as long as she could remember that she would take the throne, and Corvo had put her upon it after her mother’s murder, but she’d never appreciated it until she had to wrest it back from Delilah.

“It’s a masterpiece,” Emily said. “It deserves an equally grand setting.”

The suspicious look Delilah sent her bothered Emily. She closed her eyes again, and they were in Corvo’s attic room at the Hound Pits. Strange to think that she’d only spent a week with the Loyalists; she’d been—happy. Until they revealed their true colours.

She rubbed a hand over her eyes; she really was tired if these maudlin thoughts were the only thing she could dwell on.

“This has some promise,” Delilah said, studying the cobbled-together portrait of Corvo’s face Emily had stuck to one wall. “Creative use of medium.”

Emily snorted in spite of herself. “Corvo came back and collected every sheet, once we returned to Dunwall Tower.”

“I found them in his quarters.”

Emily laughed, startled. “A fitting setting.” She hadn’t known Corvo had kept the drawing for so long, but he was an almost compulsive hoarder, pocketing anything that caught his eye that wasn’t nailed down—so it shouldn’t have surprised her. “I used to give drawings to everyone I favoured. I suppose the others weren’t so sentimental as Corvo.”

Delilah turned to look at her, sitting on the thin, stained cot the Loyalists had probably pulled out of a dumpster for Corvo. “You look tired, niece.”

Hearing Delilah address Emily as such would never cease to jar her. “I’m always tired. Who knew sitting around listening to old men talk would be so exhausting?”

“They lose interest in whining after you kill a few of them,” Delilah said with obvious satisfaction.

“Duly noted.” Emily rolled her eyes.

“You should sleep. Dreaming of the Void is no substitute.”

“I don’t choose to visit the Void most nights.”

Delilah blinked, then scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous. Were you even listening to what I said earlier? The only time one of the marked must enter the Void is when the Outsider summons them.”

Emily looked at her blankly. “You pulled me into the Void before—” Delilah’s eyes narrowed, so she changed tack. “Why else would I—?”

“Don’t play coy with me,” Delilah snapped, real anger coming into her face then. “I know you only want to keep an eye on your usurper.”

“That’s not true,” Emily said, because it wasn’t.

“Of course you’re a liar like the rest of your noble, blighted family!” There was the Delilah that Emily remembered, the ambitious, relentless witch that had clawed her way out of the Void to lay claim to the throne her father had promised after his lies about love and family came to light.

Emily closed her eyes, and opened them to her chambers in the Tower. It was still dark outside; the clock said it was a little over an hour past midnight. She rubbed a hand over her face and rolled over. If she dreamt again that night, she did not remember it in the light of morning.

* * *

“I never know what to expect from you, Your Majesty.”

Emily bit back a groan. She should have anticipated the Outsider would show up when she visited the shrine, but she needed the rune. She’d shown the Brigmore crest to a visiting historian several days earlier, and they’d confirmed its authenticity: obviously, she could bring objects out of the Void. But her attempts to bring anything _into_ the Void had been unsuccessful thus far, and she’d already collected all the runes not left at altars.

“Perhaps I _should_ expect no less,” the Outsider mused. “I’ve never marked close relatives before, but your family is rather—exceptional.”

“Every family has drama.” Emily tucked the rune into her coat.

“But none so world-shaking.” The Outsider was smirking, it was obvious in his voice. She didn’t bother to turn; if he wanted her to see, he could stop darting around and stand before her.

“It still matters to them.”

The Outsider appeared in front of her, perched on the altar with one leg folded over the other. “Everything matters to someone, somewhere. I thought your reclaimed throne would come first but here you are, skipping out on a meeting with another faceless Overseer to collect runes for—what, exactly?”

“I need more power so I can bring something into the Void when I dream,” Emily said shortly. She didn’t appreciate the insinuations, and she’d already made her choice of who to support when the Abbey finally got around to selecting the next High Overseer.

The Outsider leaned forward, his eyes glinting strangely in the light. “What do you intend to bring?”

“Something for—” she still couldn’t bring herself to say, _my aunt_ , “—Delilah.”

The Outsider’s eyes of pitch were always unnerving, made more so by his tendency not to blink. As if he had to consciously remember to do so, and couldn’t be bothered to the rest of the time. This was one of those times.

“How very—”

“—don’t say it—”

“—fascinating,” the Outsider said, unperturbed by her mutters.

Emily sighed. “I don’t suppose you have any advice. So I can stop spending my time collecting runes and focus on ruling,” she added pointedly.

The Outsider’s mouth curled upward. “You’re not given to hesitation, though you’ve become quite skilled at hiding the truth from yourself. Your will directs the magic channeled through your mark. If your will is uncertain—” He shrugged, content to leave it at that for once. “I’m very curious now, Empress. What do you intend to gift Delilah?”

“You’ll find out when I give it to her, and no sooner. I thought you liked surprises.”

The Outsider’s smile widened and he gave her an ironic bow, before his form dissolved into nothing.

* * *

The Outsider was right, of course—or perhaps she’d finally accumulated enough runes. Either way, when she dreamt of the Void that night, the carefully rolled paper she’d prepared a week ago was tucked into the pocket of her coat. Delilah was nowhere in evidence, but Emily had wanted to give her what space she could. Perhaps—well, almost certainly, given what Delilah and the Outsider had said—her unconscious mind had meant to find Delilah so often, but it wasn’t for the reason that her aunt had assumed: reflections on her family had dominated her thoughts since she retook the throne, and aside from Corvo—to whom she lately felt more _Empress_ than _daughter_ —only Delilah remained.

Moving through the Void was less exhilarating than running the roofs of Dunwall had been. Back then, before the mark, there’d been an element of danger: she could misjudge a jump, or slip on a loose shingle, or miss her next hand- or foothold. In the Void, if she fell, she’d simply land in the same spot from which she’d jumped; in the waking world, her powers were more than sufficient for a jaunt along the rooftops.

She found Delilah standing on a spit of rock floating in the middle of nowhere, in front of yet another blank canvas. A large tree grew to one side; stone ruins were scattered around the rest of the open area.

“Emily,” Delilah said, her voice cool. If she was still angry, she gave no sign of it. It had been several weeks since Emily had last seen her, but time moved strangely in the Void.

“Delilah.” Speech-making was a skill Emily had learnt of necessity, supplemented by the expertise of her advisors. She couldn’t very well ask Corvo for suggestions on how to apologize to her murderous aunt, and when she’d tried to plan what she meant to say to Delilah when she sought her out again, nothing had come to mind. “I truly didn’t intend to—keep an eye on you. And I brought you this,” she added, thrusting the paper in her direction.

Delilah eyed it warily, but after a moment took it. She untied the ribbon carefully, and unrolled it.

Jessamine had always been gentle with and around Emily. She’d been drawn with sorrow and worry by the end, but Emily could hardly begrudge her that. Delilah’s expressions were always hard, or cold, or blatantly false; the look on her face now wasn’t _soft_ by any means, but she had softened, and it seemed genuine.

At length, Delilah raised her head from Emily’s drawing. “This is—” She paused, obviously conflicted.

“It’s terrible, I know,” Emily said. Youthful enthusiasm had lent a certain charm to her previous artwork; what little skill she might have learned back then was long-lost now. She _had_ put effort into the portrait she’d done of Delilah, but that hadn’t made much difference in the end.

“I didn’t think I’d ever agree with that old traditionalist,” Delilah said, disgruntled, “but Sokolov was right.”

“Well—” Emily glanced at her sidelong, trying and failing not to smile, “—maybe you can teach me. Aunt.”


End file.
